Thanks for your help everyone.
I used the phone wire on the turnouts I laid last night since they are short distances (less than 12" from one drop to the next). I'll go with 20 gauge stranded for feeders on the 3' flex track and use the 14 gauge stranded for the bus as suggested.
Thanks again for your help.
Bill
Bill54 wrote:what is the suggested gauge wire I should use for feeders and the bus?
Side note. I ran a G-scale layout using phone wire feeders a couple years ago - no problems.
For feeder wire I use AWG 20 and try to keep it no longer that 6"-10" in length from the AWG 14 buss wire.
Ryan
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
dstarr wrote: Feeders are only a few inches long, so even very fine wire is low resistance. Telephone wire (#24) works fine on the big club layout. It doesn't really matter, any wire that you can work easily is thick enough for a short feeder run. For bus wire, #14 house wire is overkill, electrically speaking. Folks use it cause they have it, or can get it cheap. It's mechanically rugged, you don't have to worry about a few nicks in the copper from insulation stripping causing any trouble. I wouldn't mess with #12 house wire, it's too stiff to work easily.
Feeders are only a few inches long, so even very fine wire is low resistance. Telephone wire (#24) works fine on the big club layout. It doesn't really matter, any wire that you can work easily is thick enough for a short feeder run.
For bus wire, #14 house wire is overkill, electrically speaking. Folks use it cause they have it, or can get it cheap. It's mechanically rugged, you don't have to worry about a few nicks in the copper from insulation stripping causing any trouble. I wouldn't mess with #12 house wire, it's too stiff to work easily.
Particularly in regards to using #12 wire! #14 is way overkill already. #12 would just serve up additional unwarranted headaches IMO.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
Bill54.
For your main bus, in my opinion it depends on where you put your power supplies. If all power will be located at one end of your layout I would go with #12G. If it is located in about the centre of the layout I would go with #14G.
As for the telephone wire, I believe that it is #22G. That is what I am using for my drops as long as they are kept fairly short. If a drop is fairly long, (2' +) I use thermostat wire, (#18G). To supply power to my switches I use the same telephone wire. The nice thing obout the phone wire is the standard colour coding that it gives you.
Good luck.
Blue Flamer.
I'm just starting to lay track and wire my layout. I am modeling in HO. My layout is 14'x16' with a 7' staging area leading into the 16' section making that area 23' long. I also have an island in the middle that is 5' x 8' tear drop shape where there will be a couple of industries.
I will be using the NCE Power House Pro R 5 amp DCC system. I have also bought a second 5 amp booster and power supply.
Since there are two reverse loops I have pruchased two PSX-AR reversing modules from Tony's and the PSX-4 circuit breaker module.
The layout will be broken into 6 power districts. Three of the districts will be on one booster while the other three will be on the second booster.
I have both 14 and 12 guage wire I can use for the main power bus. I plan on using feeder wires on each piece of track.
I wired 4 turnouts last night with the solid wire from telephone cable. I don't know what gauge the wire is, 22? 24? 26? but it was easy to work with.
Can the telephone wire be used or should I go with something bigger? I also have 20 gauge stranded but found the smaller wire to be much easier to work with.
So before I get any further, what is the suggested gauge wire I should use for feeders and the bus?
Thanks